

There are many advantages to resolving disputes outside the court setting.
Most frequently the advice we give will centre around cost effectiveness, speed, and taking the heat out of a situation. We also advise that it’s better to reach an agreement than have a court impose a decision, and help clients choose the manner in which the dispute is resolved – arbitration, mediation, collaborative law and so forth gives respect to autonomy.
Selecting your arbitrator enables expertise within a given subject matter which may feature within the particulars of the case.
Added to the above has always been the distinct advantage of privacy. No client wants to attend a court hearing in the knowledge that the media or professional bloggers may be present.
Post-19 June 2024, when the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, published the practice guidance on transparency in the Family Courts, the need and desire for privacy has never been greater.
We have more insight into the President’s desire that the judiciary publish more decisions.
Only through the publication of a judgment can the public understand the range of cases in the Family Court and how they are dealt with.
The guidance is specific and very clear. It ranges from a guideline requiring Magistrates to publish five judgments per year to High Court judges publishing a “minimum of 10”.
With this intervention by the President comes the thorny issue of when there should be anonymisation. Again, the President has given us insight. In short “there is little point in publishing a judgment if it so heavily redacted that it is unintelligible, or its integrity is lost or distorted”.
There is very clear guidance on anonymisation, and generally the names of the parties and the family members will be anonymised and dates of birth for children will be removed.
In Financial Remedy work – my field of specialism – it’s concerning that names of an employer, business, place of work, details of bank accounts and investments are not recorded to be “anonymised”. The practice direction states “consider removing/redacting”.
Therefore, clients should be careful, and understand the loss of privacy that can easily arise if a judge is going to report a decision that was made in the Family Court.